


Six-string Storytellers

by mythras_fire



Series: Like Something Cosmic [5]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 2x12 Coda, Alex Manes Deserves Nice Things, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bonfires, Brother Feels, Gregory Manes POV, Gregory Manes is a good brother, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Michael Guerin Loves Alex Manes, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24721474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: Everyone gathers around the fire-pit at Max's hacienda for a night of music and s'mores after their victorious stand against Jesse and Flint.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Like Something Cosmic [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675075
Comments: 17
Kudos: 67





	Six-string Storytellers

**Author's Note:**

> For my peeps with whom I had fun chatting about Gregory being a little shit to Alex because he is long overdue ♥
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters, quotes, lyrics, and pop-culture references belong to their respective creators.

“Alex, would you like to do the honors?” Max asked.

“Sure,” he replied with a quiet smile as he got up from his seat and went inside.

Gregory watched curiously through the French doors as Alex grabbed not one, but two guitar cases and brought them back outside where everyone was sprawled on blankets or lounging in Max’s cushioned Adirondack chairs around the fire-pit.

He thought for a second that Alex was bringing the second guitar over for him to play like they had when they were kids, but he sat back down next to Michael and handed the other guitar case to him instead, earning a dopey grin from the other man.

Gregory was about to ask Michael how long he’d been playing when he pulled Gregory’s old guitar out of the case, making his eyes widen in surprise. 

He’d recognize that guitar anywhere because there was a chip in the neck right above where his left hand rested from that one time he lost his balance on the stool he’d been sitting on and banged it against the edge of the tiled kitchen counter. The clear nail polish he’d brushed over the resulting scratches on the back of the neck contrasted with the matte finish in the firelight for a moment as Michael rotated it to sit nestled in his lap.

Gregory smirked as he caught Alex’s eye across the firelight and raised an eyebrow in question as he tilted his head in Michael’s direction.

Alex had the grace to blush before dipping his head and clearing his throat as he began tuning his guitar with determination.

Gregory shifted his gaze to find Michael watching the two of them. 

“What?” Michael looked like he was missing out on the silent conversation and wanted in, so who was Gregory to deny him?

“Nice guitar you have there, Michael.”

“Uh, thanks, it-it was a—” Michael glanced at Alex for a moment to find his head studiously bent over his guitar still, “—a gift.”

“Music: the gift that keeps on giving. And a very thoughtful one at that.” He couldn’t help the wry grin spreading across his face as he, too, glanced over at his brother.

Michael was starting to look at both Manes brothers like there was something fishy going on here. 

“Yeah,” Michael replied, elongating the vowel sound in his confusion, “and it came at a time when I really needed a, um, a creative outlet, you know?”

“Sure do.” Gregory smiled warmly at Michael. “How’s the nail lacquer over those scratches holding up?”

“Oh, is that what that is? I’d always wondered why it was so sh-iiiiit, uh, how—how d’you know about that, you c-can’t see it from where—” Michael abruptly cut himself off and hugged the guitar to his chest as he leaned over to whisper in Alex’s ear, much to Gregory’s amusement because in his panic he forgot to actually be quiet. Even if he had been, you don’t teach elementary school kids without learning how to read lips and body language pretty quickly.

_“Why didn’t you tell me you’d given me the nice brother’s guitar?!”_

Well, at least he’s ‘the nice brother’ in Michael’s book. And boy wasn’t that a loaded compliment given everything they’d been through recently.

Alex finally looked up at his, what? Boyfriend? Gregory didn’t actually know but _something_ had obviously changed since he’d seen his brother last and there was no denying the love passing between the two men’s eyes, even if some of it looked chagrined coming from Alex’s side of the, hah, loveseat they’d commandeered earlier that evening. If Alex had given Michael Gregory’s old guitar then that meant this was the guy he’d been so torn up over the summer he shipped out for basic. Wow.

_“I didn’t think it would matter!”_ Alex whisper-yelled back before sitting up and looking over at Gregory… nervously? In a soft but regular tone of voice he said, “I’m sorry, Greg, did you want it back?” Michael was nodding vociferously in agreement, frankly awesome golden-brown curls bouncing against his forehead, looking ill-at-ease holding the guitar out by the time Gregory waved his hands in a placating gesture.

“No, no, no! I didn’t mean to make you two uncomfortable, I just wasn’t expecting to see my old guitar again is all,” Gregory reassured them. Alex relaxed with a smile as he turned his gaze to the fire, taking his brother at his word. Michael, having no such reason to be so easily mollified he realized, tried again.

“Are you sure, man? I mean, I can totally save up to buy my own, it’s no problem, really, I—”

“Michael, it’s fine. Please, I want you to keep it. After all, it was a gift to you from my brother, was it not?” A smirk slid back into place on his face. “He doesn’t share things that are important to him with just anybody. You wouldn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, now, would you?”

“Well, no, I guess not,” Michael responded, his words slowing down as he contemplated Alex gazing into the fire, mindlessly strumming the now super-fine-tuned guitar in his lap.

Oh yeah, that guy was such a goner. Gregory’s smirk relaxed into a soft smile. He was happy for them, they certainly suited each other well from what he’d seen of their devotion to keeping each other safe even at the cost of their own self-preservation.

“Okay! So,” Max chose that moment to butt in, rubbing his hands in front of him, ostensibly to warm them by the fire like he hadn’t just been hovering on the edge of their conversation waiting for an in while the others roasted s’mores on wire sticks around the other side of the fire-pit. “What uh, what’re you going to play for us, Alex, Michael, now that your guitars are um, all nice and tuned up?”

Michael finally got a chance to tune his guitar with a grateful nod at Gregory as Alex ran through a couple of warm-up chord progressions, eyes still cast on the flames dancing in the center of their gathering.

“Take a seat and we’ll show you,” Alex replied as he scooted over to one end of the loveseat so Michael wouldn’t bump his arm. Everyone else quieted down and watched as Alex shifted in his seat to sit canted toward Michael who mirrored his position.

Gregory wrapped his blanket a little more securely around his shoulders and settled further back in his chair, exchanging glances across the fire with his newfound Roswell friends. Isobel caught his eye and smiled sweetly at him, to which he couldn’t help but return the gesture.

A melodic tune began weaving through the plumes of heated air above the fire-pit a long moment later which broke the spell and caused them both to turn their heads towards the six-string storytellers in their midst. Alex and Michael must have had their own silent conversation in the meantime as they seemed to have chosen a song without Gregory’s super-teacher-hearing detecting anything. 

He was excited to hear his brother sing again. He was happiest when he was playing music for someone he loved, like mom or their grandparents when they were lucky enough to visit them on the reservation. The look on Alex’s face now was one of quiet contemplation of the serene man sitting across from him as he strummed the opening bars opposite Michael’s harmony.

Alex’s voice was lower and more gravelly now that he was older but it also sounded stronger and more secure as he began to sing softly.

> When all of your flaws and all of my flaws  
>  Are laid out one by one  
>  A wonderful part of the mess that we made  
>  We pick ourselves undone  
>    
>  All of your flaws and all of my flaws  
>  They lie there hand in hand  
>  Ones we've inherited, ones that we learn  
>  They pass from man to man

Michael picked up the melody line and sang the chorus while Alex strummed along. His singing voice had more of a twang to it and he didn’t have the same grace and ease as Alex did but he also sang with more abandon, just throwing himself into the crescendos of the music, a practice that Gregory felt was a nice complement to his brother's more reserved style.

> There's a hole in my soul  
>  I can't fill it, I can't fill it  
>  There's a hole in my soul  
>  Can you fill it? Can you fill it?  
>    
>  You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve  
>  And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground  
>    
>  Dig them up  
>  Let's finish what we've started  
>  Dig them up  
>  So nothing's left unturned

When Alex picked up the song for the second verse, Gregory noticed that everyone who knew the song had started singing along under their breath, swaying softly from side to side in their seats. He himself was only vaguely familiar with the song but from what he’d heard so far it sounded like an anthem for the struggles his brother, his friends, and their families had been through in the past year and he knew he was going to go home and look up the lyrics later, maybe pick the tune out on his own guitar.

> All of your flaws and all of my flaws  
>  When they have been exhumed  
>  We'll see that we need them to be who we are  
>  Without them, we'd be doomed

This time when the chorus started up again, both Michael and Alex sang but Gregory could tell that at this point, there was no one left around the fire-pit. They were singing and playing for each other only. Gregory relished the thought of the shovel talk he was going to have with Michael the next time they hung out. Not that he thought they really needed one at this point, but he’d never gotten to do this before for Alex so he was going to make it _good_. And by good he meant as squirm-inducing as possible. This guy looked like he was made of pretty stern stuff, so Gregory would just have to bring his A-game.

> There's a hole in my soul  
>  I can't fill it, I can't fill it  
>  There's a hole in my soul  
>  Can you fill it? Can you fill it?  
>    
>  You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve  
>  And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground  
>    
>  Dig them up  
>  Let's finish what we've started  
>  Dig them up  
>  So nothing's left unturned

Their voices petered out as they neared the end of the song, their hands moving in tandem across the frets. Gregory had noticed earlier that evening that Michael had ditched the bandana he’d seen him wearing on every previous occasion and now his left hand had an awkward tan pattern on it from where the cloth had been covering, protecting? his knuckles and palm. Gregory didn’t see anything wrong with his hand though so he wasn’t sure what that was all about. Maybe something to do with his job? He was a cowboy mechanic if the big-ass belt buckle, shit-kicker boots, and grease-stained Wranglers were anything to go by.

The wind kicked up a patch of dust just then and blew it over the fire, making Gregory sneeze, which seemed to break the spell the two musicians were under because they turned awkwardly toward the sound like they’d just realized they were here and not… elsewhere. It was pretty fucking cute, Gregory was gathering all sorts of fun intel on Alex’s love life tonight that he could use later on in private to make his brother turn red as Yosemite Sam when he’s hopping mad about those blasted varmints always ruining his plans.

Everyone clapped and wolf-whistled and hollered for an encore but Gregory could tell that Alex was embarrassed to have been caught making heart-eyes at Michael, or Guerin as he’d heard him called most of the time, so he knew an encore was not in the cards, at least right now. 

He decided to rescue his brother by offering to play the next song. “If you don’t mind, Michael, I’d like to take a spin with ol’ Bessy there.”

That got a round of laughter from everyone and all eyes off Alex.

“Bessy?” Michael asked incredulously as he almost fell out of the loveseat in his haste to hand Gregory his guitar.

“What, like you didn’t name your truck?” Gregory shot back with an easy smile.

“Hah, he’s got you there, Guerin. Gimme,” Rosa— no, it was Rosalinda, snarked as she made grabby hands for Alex’s guitar; he passed it to Max who passed it to Liz to give to Rosa so he wouldn’t have to get up.

Gregory took note of the zero hesitance in Alex letting this Rosalinda play his guitar. If he didn’t know better he’d swear she was the doppelgänger of Alex’s friend Rosa from high school. Like he’d told Michael earlier, Alex didn’t share his things with just anyone, so he must have been really tight with Rosa’s cousin, too. It sounded like their moms might have had an argument over who got to name their daughter Rosa so they compromised.

“You know what you’re going to play?” Rosalinda asked as she stretched her fingers and cracked her knuckles like she meant business.

“Ladies first,” Gregory replied politely with a sweep of his hand in her direction.

“Awesome, thanks,” she quipped immediately like she would have rather just started playing but then remembered her manners like a teenager would do, which made Gregory chuckle to himself.

While Rosalinda warmed up by playing some famous riffs that Gregory was only half-listening to as he thought of something he wanted to play, rustling sounds to his right made him look up. Michael had pulled a flannel blanket off the back of the loveseat and was currently draping it over both himself and Alex, who had scooted back over and was now leaning into Guerin’s side. Gregory was careful to leave his face blank but on the inside he was quite pleasantly surprised by this public display of affection from Alex. This was big. It may not have looked like much to anyone else, but with all the bullshit his brother had dealt with in his life, this was fucking epic. Gregory felt reassured that Alex had found his family at long last amongst with whom people he truly felt safe and loved.

He briefly thought about nixing his plans for a shovel talk with Michael, until he saw the guy turn his head and whisper something in Alex’s ear that made him try to hide a gasp in reaction to the obviously dirty thing he’d just been told, then changed his mind. Nopes, he’d missed out on giving his brother shit for the last ten years. He had a lot of catching up to do.

**Author's Note:**

> The song that Alex and Michael play is _Flaws_ by Bastille and I have waited all season to use this song so I felt now was an apropos moment.
> 
> Also, everyone may have been present at the bonfire but only a few people spoke and I hand-waved a bunch of, y'know, actual plot stuff and any mention of Gregory's age since we just don't know *shrugs*. It was late. I was tired.


End file.
